


There's a void in my heart and I can't fill it

by snekwami



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aromantic, F/M, I didn't know whether this counted as F/M or Gen, Queerplatonic Relationships, adrimi, because they're both aro af, but it's definitely Adrimi, so very aro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 19:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18708808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snekwami/pseuds/snekwami
Summary: Kagami and Adrien are a power couple. But not in the conventional way.





	There's a void in my heart and I can't fill it

**Author's Note:**

> Look I know they're not aro in the show of course but this aro writer has feels sometimes, okay? Anyway if you're not cool with them being aromantic for whatever reason then don't read this (disclaimer: adrimi is an awesome wonderful ship and this is just a headcanon thing for fun) (and I pretty much rushed this so I don't know how good it is haha)

Kagami had not been intending to become part of some weird love triangle for Adrien’s affections. It was merely a side-effect of going after the most popular boy in Paris, a rather annoying side-effect, and one that she would rather not have had to deal with.

It soon became clear that this was not just a simple love triangle, though, like in those bland teen dystopia books she’d got bored of reading. No, this was on another level entirely – swelling from triangle to cube to a messed-up amalgamation of affections with no resolution in sight. There was Ladybug, there was Marinette, there was Lila, Chloé, a great deal of irrelevant fangirls with no chance whatsoever, and from other sides there were even more people with even more crushes, like Chat Noir, Luka, plenty of people getting embroiled in this complete madness without knowing quite how chaotic it was.

Kagami knew her mother wanted her to end up with Adrien. She knew that Adrien’s father wanted it too. She knew it would benefit both of their families greatly in the long run if only she and Adrien could happily get together with no external threats to make things more complicated than they needed to be. But of course it couldn’t be that simple.

For starters, everyone already had the wrong idea. Yes, Kagami was stoic, blunt, seemingly cold and emotionless – no wonder they’d all been calling her “the ice queen” behind her back and thinking she hadn’t noticed. Was there a frosty heart under it all, one that needed melting? Needed “saving”? No, not like that. She already had rather affectionate feelings towards Adrien. He was cute, polite, friendly, and damn, he could be kinda hot sometimes.

But was she interested in some kind of traditional, cultural, romantic relationship with him?

_Nah._

That was what frustrated her the most about this whole mess. Everyone else seemed to be acting on some invisible emotion, one that Kagami knew of but couldn’t really see the point of. Countless people were in love with Adrien – they were pulled towards him, as if by a magnet, and it got in the way of all their sense. You kind of had to feel sorry for them. It didn’t look like much fun, despite how everyone claimed it to be the “best feeling in the world” or whatever.

And what about Adrien himself? How did he feel about all this? He had given Kagami a rose, asked her on a date, but still blushed like a moron around Ladybug, and was so oblivious to the advances of everyone around him, almost as if he were doing it on purpose. He was heartfelt and sappy, sure. Would Kagami have to adapt, in order to win his heart? Match him in his heartfelt and sappy ways, going against her own nature?

Perhaps there was a simple solution to all of this. Adrien was a trustworthy friend, right? So maybe the solution was to simply tell him outright, and find a way to fix this absurd love tesseract before anyone did anything completely stupid.

-

“I’m aromantic.”

It was the first time she’d said it out loud, not really having had anyone she felt comfortable confiding it to before now. It was somewhat suspicious that Gabriel Agreste quite willingly left Adrien alone with Kagami, in this big bedroom, when he usually didn’t let his son hang out with his friends here – but then again, it wasn’t all that suspicious considering how close their parents were, and how obvious it was that the rich heir to a fashion company and the latest prodigy in a family of athletes would make a powerful match.

She knew that there were cameras in here, of course. But she also knew that they didn’t pick up sound. In any case, she had said it quietly. Some things were so personal you just couldn’t say them with full force, no matter how much you tried to convince yourself that you were confident about it.

Adrien merely stared for a few seconds, before breathing a sigh of relief and suddenly grinning so wide it was as if all the tension from a lifetime of stress had left his body instantly. “You’re aro? Oh good, me too!”

He was… what?

It was Kagami’s turn to be surprised. Hadn’t Adrien been fawning over Ladybug for as long as she had known him? He seemed to notice her silence, as he quickly continued.

“I only really realized it recently actually, I’ve watched too much anime in my life and thought it means that if I like a girl then I must _like_ a girl, you know? Or a boy… I don’t know. It’s all new. But everyone around me seems to be in love with me and it’s so stifling and I don’t even want any of it! I didn’t notice until I thought about it properly. I love my friends and that’s good enough for me, even if I tried so hard to convince myself it wasn’t. I’m just… I’m just rambling now, I’m sorry, I haven’t told anyone yet so this is all kind of… yeah…”

Already while he was speaking, so much relief ran through Kagami, through that hole in her heart that she would never be able to fill, giving her hope that she had never dared to dream of before. It hadn’t occurred to her that the boy she liked could ever like her back, and yet _not_ be in love with her – the chances of that had always seemed so miniscule that she didn’t believe it would ever happen.

But Adrien was aromantic too! He did know how it felt after all.

“I’m glad I told you,” Kagami said, not bothering to hold back a smile. “And thank you for telling me, too.”

“Of course! I’m glad we told each other as well.”

The way he was sitting there, beaming at her, a nervous hand rubbing the back of his neck… he certainly was very cute. She could sort of, _kind of_ , see what everyone else saw in him. Partially. Yes, his personality did make her want to be closer to him. But not in that particular arbitrary way that was expected of her.

“I think our parents are hoping for us to be a couple,” she said to him. “Don’t tell my mother that I’m aro. Don’t tell your father either. I don’t want them knowing.”

Used to her blunt way of speaking by now, he didn’t flinch. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone. I don’t think I’ll even tell anyone about me being aro either. I mean… I keep wondering if it’ll change…”

“Straight people don’t wonder about that. You shouldn’t have to either.”

His smile had been dropping, but it now sprang back fully formed. “You’re right. If it changes, it changes. But I shouldn’t worry about it.”

“Good.”

“Hey…” His voice went quieter. “You know that time I gave you a rose? And asked you out? That made me so nervous, I didn’t even end up enjoying it. I’m never doing that again. Feels good to not need to.”

Kagami nodded. “I understand the feeling of being pressured into expectations. We both are, aren’t we? Because we’re high society and our parents expect complete obedience. And you’re lonely, so you want any kind of affection you can get, whether you’re comfortable with it or not.”

He chuckled. “It’s like you can read my mind.”

“I just know you well. Now listen, I have a proposition for you…”

She put a hand on the side of his face, much the same way as she had done one or two times before, only she didn’t need to have that nagging worry at the back of her mind this time that he would take the gesture as romantic.

“…You have a lot of unwanted romantic attention on you right now, from all sides. If you tell everyone you’re in a relationship with me, they won’t bug you about it anymore. They’ll have to get over it. Then you wouldn’t need to worry.”

“So like… lying? Pretending to be in a relationship?”

She shook her head. “No need to lie. I never said what kind of relationship.”

“Oh, I see… I was reading lots about it the other day, how not all relationships have to be romantic, things like that. Is that what you mean? A… a QPR? Is that what it’s called?”

“Call it what you want, I don’t care. A relationship. So, do you want to be in one or not?”

The way his eyes gleamed as he nodded eagerly, it really hit her. He was so lonely! And yes, he did have friends, friends who cared about him a lot, but for so many people romantic love was always put first. Maybe poor Adrien hadn’t had the chance to be put first in a way that mattered to _him_ , as opposed to someone having a hefty crush on him and deciding he was important to them specifically because of that. Perhaps Adrien wanted to be put first in a platonic way. Or… whatever way it was. Just not romantic.

As for Kagami, well. Her life had been very solitary indeed up to this point. It wasn’t for lack of trying – her overbearing mother and her own stubborn demeanour had managed to push away most people who got even remotely close. She was aware that Adrien could be a bit of a pushover, and had made a conscious effort not to take advantage of that, but then again something about him seemed to soften her up too.

Had their lonely upbringings had some kind of effect? Had it “made” them aromantic? Considering that there was no real way to tell, it probably wasn’t even relevant.

“Right, so we’re in a relationship now,” Kagami said. “People will think my refusal to be romantic with you in public is because of my ‘ice queen’ personality. That’s a good cover.”

Adrien nodded. “Good point. But you’re not an ice queen, by the way. You’re really… nice. A n-ICE queen!”

Stupid pun? She frowned, something hitting her all of a sudden. “Adrien, are you Chat Noir by any chance?”

“H-huh? Um, noooo…. of course not…”

“You’re lying. You’re Chat Noir. That actually explains a lot, come to think of it.”

He blinked. “You’re taking this remarkably well.”

“Oh no, I’m actually very surprised on the inside. But I should have seen it coming. Anyway, I won’t tell anyone. Are you going to continue to flirt with Ladybug in battle?”

“Probably not, it just feels really hollow now.”

“I think she’ll appreciate that.”

Adrien blushed. The poor thing blushed so easily – people probably mistook him for having crushes all the time, considering his perpetually reddened face. “I know I was a bit stupid about that in the past. For me it kinda felt like having a crush on her was a choice I picked, you know? So I was just really confused why she wouldn’t do the same back.”

“Well now you know that people don’t pick their crushes. Ladybug is already in love with Adrien, so… oh wait, that’s you. Wow, this love mess is _way_ more convoluted than I realized. How do people deal with it so casually?”

“No idea.”

“Hm. Anyway… thank you Adrien. I’ve never talked to anyone about being aro before. I didn’t expect to get such a convenient response. It’s…” She turned away a little, looking at the floor, her icy heart growing a tad colder. “…it’s nice, because I know that me being aro is inconvenient. It’s inconvenient to my mother, it’s inconvenient to your father, and it’s inconvenient to all those other kids who like you and will think I’m snatching you away without even having the heart to feel the same way about you as they do. Being aromantic seems to be a very inconvenient orientation.”

“True,” Adrien said, resting his head on his hands with a rather glum expression on his face. “I think that’s why it took me so long to realize it. I had all the signs, but I just didn’t want to believe it. It was kind of a last resort thing.”

“Much the same with me.”

They sat stewing in silence for a moment or two, before Kagami had had enough of seeing her new partner so miserable, and leapt to her feet filled with energy. “Let’s duel. Me and you.”

He looked up at her. “Right now?”

“Yes. If you sit around feeling sorry for yourself you’ll just get lazy. Let’s _go_.”

Without needing to wait, she strode off to get her fencing gear and trusted that he would follow behind her.

-

The judgy looks were pretty annoying. Kagami didn’t exactly _cling_ to Adrien’s arm, not the way she’d seen people like Chloé and Lila doing, but she certainly was holding onto it, and that alone was enough to cause people to notice and begin whispering amongst themselves.

“I think all your friends hate me,” Kagami hissed out of the corner of her mouth, as they passed a group of vaguely familiar-looking people glaring at them.

“They just don’t know you,” Adrien said back.

“It’s more than that. Didn’t you say your class randomly cheered when that Marinette girl kissed your cheek that one time? They were all probably trying to set you two up. You were just too dense to notice it.”

Adrien giggled. “Yeah, I’m really bad at noticing stuff like that! But really… do you think Marinette actually liked me?”

“Yes.”

“Will she get over me?”

“She’s got that Luka boy, right? Of course she will.”

“Wow. You’re way better at all this romance stuff than I am.”

“Says the guy who’s been smoothly flirting with Ladybug for the past several months and kissed her twice.”

Adrien blushed. “I don’t even remember either of those.”

“You seemed like you didn’t mind it.”

“Well yeah, I mean…” He shrugged. “It’s just kissing, right? I never really thought it was gross.”

Kagami looked him up and down, her mind whirring. “Neither do I, Adrien, neither do I…”

-

Fencing was what Kagami was born to do, and it seemed that until now, she had never exactly found an opponent to match her strength. But Adrien? Oh, that boy was something else. Their first match together still stuck in her mind – the ferocity of it, the way neither of them held back, in sync and on the same wavelength in a way that she had yet to find with anyone else. There was some kind of spark in the air. Like static electricity.

After a particularly strenuous duel they sat together on the steps taking a break, leaning back, chugging down water and trying to regain their energy. At this point everyone else at fencing classes just tended to let the two of them do their own thing.

“You know,” Kagami said, a lazy hand reaching over and absent-mindedly twirling a strand of his hair, “I never really say this to people because they always get the wrong idea, but you’re incredibly hot.”

Adrien choked on his water. “Uh – w-what?”

“Especially when we’re fencing. Do you know what I mean? Do you feel it too?”

His red face grew even redder. “Yeah, I… that’s why I was confused about it all at first. Why I gave you that flower, and asked you out. You’re really like… pretty, and… physically attractive… I just thought it meant I had to have a crush on you.”

“Most people don’t bother separating out those feelings. Anyway, I like you, and I really enjoy these fencing duels we’ve got going on, and I just wanted you to know that.”

“Aw… thanks Kagami. I really like our fencing duels too.”

“So then you’re ready for another one?”

“What? Not yet! Gimme five more minutes!”

Oh, sweet Adrien. He wasn’t some “missing piece” to fix the hole in her heart where a romantic partner was supposed to go. Yet he did definitely have some kind of allure. She had first noticed it when fencing against him, and now it seeped into their everyday conversation too.

-

“What do you mean camembert isn’t even that good?!” Plagg screeched, zooming over to punch Kagami in the arm. Luckily it was too light to hurt.

“It isn’t,” she said. “There are better types of cheese.”

Plagg turned to face Adrien. “I don’t approve of her. She has bad taste in cheese.”

“Well,” Adrien said, grinning, “I don’t need your approval, and she’s not even my girlfriend anyway.”

“Good. I always told you all that mushy romance stuff was gross, didn’t I? I’m glad you agree now.”

“It’s not gross, it’s just not my thing.”

“Whatever. Have you told your dad yet?”

“Not yet…”

“Well good luck with that. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go eat some CAMEMBERT, which is the BEST CHEESE IN THE WORLD, by the way!”

He flew away and out of sight.

“He seems like a lot to deal with,” Kagami said. Adrien shrugged, a grin still on his face.

“He can be sweet too sometimes. He’s just tsundere.”

“You’re such a weeb, Adrien.”

“Well I had to spend most of my childhood obsessing over anime! I didn’t have any friends yet.”

“What about Chloé?”

Adrien winced. “Chloé is lovely now, but she was always really clingy growing up. I think she might have… liked me. Romantically, I mean. I don’t know. She sometimes acted like it anyway.”

_Sometimes acted like it_ , honestly. This boy was so oblivious.

Kagami slid an arm around him, catching him by surprise. “I promise you now that if I’m ever being ‘clingy’, it’s definitely not romantic.”

“I know that. And I like it when you do it.”

He gave her such a sweet smile, she was almost tempted to just… _duel_ him… right there and then. But she settled for a hug, her body temperature rising a few degrees. That kind of thing tended to be initiated by romance anyway, and she just didn’t want that.

-

“Are you mad at me?” Kagami asked.

Marinette shook her head, a genuine smile on her face. “I’m not, I promise! Listen, my crush on Adrien was ages ago, it’s all old news now. What, one or two years now? Whatever, it’s in the past. Point is, no more beef between us. We should be friends.”

She held out her hand, and Kagami gladly shook it. “Thank you for understanding.”

“Of course! Adrien came out to me last night and I knew I needed to talk to you too and clear the air a bit. So, are you two in a QPR then?”

“Yes. How do you know what that is?”

“Oh, there’s this other aro kid who was in our class back then too, so I just picked up some termi–”

“Let me guess, that tiny pink gremlin one?”

Marinette chuckled. “Yeah, was she that obvious about it? Well anyway, it’s cool that you and Adrien are aro too. I’m sorry I used to be so jealous and weird about it. I’ve moved on from all that, I promise.”

“Of course. I made a lot of mistakes back then too. I was also petty and jealous, and…”

Memories were coming back to her, memories of letting her emotions get the better of her and waking up an hour later having had a brief stint as an akuma villain and not really remembering anything about it. Oh, those days! She could never go back. Trying to win over Adrien the traditional way had never been fun.

And Marinette… that girl was so nice, so kind, so amazing, and yet had never really shown that side to Kagami herself. Not until now. Could jealousy really blind people that much? Leave a rift that took years to mend?

At least it _had_ been mended. Kagami felt much lighter now, having made amends with Marinette, amends that could have been made years ago. And judging from the happy look on Marinette’s face, she probably felt a lot lighter too.

-

High society parties were so dreary sometimes. Kagami was in Paris this time, having been back and forth between here and Tokyo several times over the past few years, sometimes with Adrien in tow too. They had never quite told their parents that they were together – there was a fine line they walked, where most people knew or at least speculated that they were in a relationship, but couldn’t 100% prove it. Their parents had never brought it up directly. Even when the paparazzi asked about it, it was always “no comment”.

“Are we going to tell them?” Kagami asked, alone with Adrien in a deserted corner of the hall where all these annoying, judgmental rich people wouldn’t be able to bother them.

“Tell them what?” Adrien asked. “That we’re a couple, or that we’re aro? Or both?”

“To most people those phrases would be mutually exclusive. I don’t think explaining to them the exact intricacies of our relationship would be worth it.”

Adrien sighed. “I wish I could just tell the world. It gets kind of annoying to have everyone assuming we’re _dating_ -dating all the time. It’s kind of… stifling.”

“I know. Romance seeps into everything, everywhere. I was ambivalent before, but it’s honestly starting to disgust me.”

“Me too.”

He was fiddling with his ring. It had been years since he’d first become a superhero, so naïve and lonely back then that he believed his admiration for Ladybug was something else entirely. Nowadays he almost seemed like an entirely different person. Or at least, he was one around Kagami. So much more truthful, so much more relaxed, so much more… intimate.

She glanced down at the suit he was wearing. It had been designed specifically by Gabriel Agreste, of course, and tailored so perfectly she could have stared at it for hours. She would love to just trace a finger down and undo a few of those buttons–

“You okay?”

She snapped herself out of it, looking back up at his face. “Adrien? Have you ever actually kissed someone and remembered it?”

“No.”

Kagami allowed herself a little smirk. “Is it something you’d want to do?”

Adrien smirked back. “Are you offering?”

That was enough of an invitation. She took the ends of his collar down and pushed their lips together.

Almost as if by telepathy, some kind of cold chill ran through the back of her head – she let go of him and turned around to see Adrien’s father across the room, looking at them with raised eyebrows.

“I think your father knows now,” she whispered, turning back to Adrien.

“Oh… oops.”

“Are you going to tell him about the aro thing too?”

“Well like you said, it’d probably just confuse him… I mean, he did just see me kissing you…”

“So what will he do? Will he be mad?”

Adrien grinned. “To be honest, he’ll probably just get Nathalie to give me the Talk and a pack of condoms or something.”

“Good.” Kagami took his hand and began walking away, with him trailing slightly behind her.

“Huh? Where are we going?”

“To find Nathalie, of course.”

She revelled in his shocked silence, and turned back a few seconds later to see a rather stupid smile on that blushy hot face of his.

-

“So does this count as eloping?” Adrien asked, as Kagami placed the envelope onto the desk in front of them.

“It only counts as eloping if we get married,” she said. “But I know you hate your father, and I’m not that interested in staying under my mother’s thumb my whole life, so in that regard we’re kind of eloping.”

“Did you leave a note for your mother too?”

“Yes. It’s in Braille.”

Adrien nodded. “Did you mention the… the aro thing?”

“I did.”

Kagami was used to being able to control her nerves well, and wasn’t accustomed to feeling so worried over something like this. But the truth was, she _was_ worried – she didn’t need her mother’s approval, but she sure as hell wanted it.

Would it have been easier to keep pretending her whole life? Pretending that she and Adrien were in love, and would get married, and inherit the Agreste company, and go through life as everyone else seemed to?

It wouldn’t have been fair to Adrien. And it wouldn’t have been fair to her, either.

She loved him. She loved him so much. Not romantically, no, they had never fallen into that, not even as they got older and everything became more stringent and suffocating. Their relationship was something different. Something that people couldn’t seem to grasp.

Was it a best friendship? No, it didn’t have that kind of dynamic, though the bulk of it probably did fall into platonic lines. Was it one of those “friends with benefits” things? Closer, and yet it didn’t quite fit. Queerplatonic relationship? That was it, that was the one, although so many people somehow seemed not to understand how the _benefits_ played into it.

Whatever. People didn’t need to understand. After all, Kagami simply couldn’t understand the romance, and yet that seemed to happen all over the place.

She picked up her fencing sword from where it leaned against the table leg, a rush of nostalgia hitting her. This foil was the same one she had first duelled Adrien with, all that time ago.

Adrien put a hand on her shoulder, smiling. “Are you going to enter the Olympics? You could, you know. You’re so good.”

Kagami nodded. “You could enter too.”

“But my father…”

“You won’t need his approval anymore.”

“I know, it’s just still hard to get used to. But you’re right. We can both be Olympic athletes.”

“Good. Sounds like a plan.”

She softly slipped her hand into his. It wouldn’t really matter what their parents thought, in the end. Sure, maybe things would hurt – it still made her feel so guilty to know she could never live up to certain expectations. There was a void in her heart that she had no way to possibly fill.

But Adrien had that void too. And together, they felt a little less lonely about it.


End file.
